Dawson Retreats

From the Blog

Are We Wise Or Foolish?

We poured the foundation for Retreat Home #2 this week and it has gotten us thinking about why a good foundation is so important….

We have all heard of the story of the wise man who built his house upon a rock and it “fell not”. Likewise, we’ve heard of the foolish man who built his house upon the sand and “great was the fall thereof”…. but by? Why is everything dependent upon the foundation?

The purpose of a foundation is to support and protect.

Support:

Foundations carry the load of the structure built on it. A simple house can be built on a foundation that extends a mere 3 feet, while a sky scraper’s foundation can go as deep as 150 feet or more; depending on the building’s height and soil type.

Protect:

As for protection, our minds naturally gravitate to the support a foundation provides a house when bombarded with heavy winds and torrential rains. Which is true, but one of the greatest forms of protection a foundation provides is against frost. For this reason, all foundations are required to extend below the frost line (aka: how deep the ground freezes in the winter). Doing so prevents frost from getting under the foundation which, if it did, would expand and contract causing the foundation to crack.

Over long periods of time a shallow foundation can weaken a home’s structural integrity – leaving it more susceptible to other elements such as winds and rains.

Moral of the story:

Whether you are building a home, a family, or your faith. Dig deep & pour a good foundation that will support and protect against the storms of life.